


which part is the path (and which is the happiness)

by russets



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 22:19:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10863234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/russets/pseuds/russets
Summary: "You don't want me here?""No Mac, I don't. Why the hell would I want you here?"The casual cruelty is a lot harder when he doesn't mean it, Dennis realises.





	which part is the path (and which is the happiness)

**Author's Note:**

> set after maybe a year or so of Dennis being in North Dakota? hope you enjoy

"I need you to leave," Dennis says. 

"What?" Mac looks up at him with those wide, wide eyes, open and trusting even still, somehow. 

He looks strange out of Philly, out of place and small on the wide porch steps. The too big leather jacket draped over his shoulders doesn't help the image, shockingly dark against the snowy ground behind him. 

Dennis hasn't seen that jacket before, doesn't think it belonged to Mac originally. So much has changed since he left, but it always comes back to this, somehow, back to Mac staring up him with impossibly soft affection in his eyes. 

It's strange, Dennis thinks, how someone so terrible can look so goddamn small, but then Mac always has had a fragile streak, and Dennis learnt how to play on it years ago. If Dennis treated him mean he'd come back stumbling over himself to be eager, if he was cruel to him he'd try to make Dennis happy twice as hard. 

Possibly, if life hadn't been quite so hard on him, if his parents had given a shit, if someone had just once told him they loved him. Well. Maybe then things could have been different. But then, if things had been different he would've given up on Dennis years ago. They might not have even met. 

Dennis can't bring himself to regret that. 

Meeting Mac was nothing less than life changing. Dennis had been getting so tired, he remembers, so goddamn tired of trying to hold things together, of trying to rule that shitty school and of it never quite working. Dennis had been tired of people looking at him with something strange in their eyes, like they were torn between laughter and fear and turning their backs on him completely. 

And then there had been Mac, with his wide grins and his red, eager eyes, high on weed or whatever Charlie had managed to scrounge up but somehow still so much warmer than anyone else in that hellish place, and Dennis had thought maybe, finally, he'd found something good. 

And then Dennis ruined him. 

He'd dragged it out, years and years of giving just a little, tidbits of affection scattered here and there, keeping Mac there, right next to him. Mac ate it up, affection starved and lonely and maybe a little bit in love, and so Dennis had thought maybe that would be enough. 

It had never been enough.

It was never going to be enough but Dennis didn't figure that out until it was too late, until it was ten years down the line and he realised that those feelings that he'd lost somewhere along the way were never coming back, not like they should. 

Until Dennis had forgotten how to live without him. 

Mac's grown, since he left. Dennis can see it in the way he stands a little bit taller, the way he meets his eyes without flinching. It's been years since he's been able to do that and it stirs something in Dennis' chest that's too big and yawning to name so he pushes it down to where he pushes everything down until it stops, until it's just a quiet rumble. 

It's strange, is all. Strange that somehow he's someone Dennis doesn't quite recognise. It's happiness, Dennis thinks, or something like it. 

Maybe it's as close to happiness as any of them will ever get, a little too hesitant to fully claim the name, a little too shy. They've all tried it one time or another, too many times to count. They've all been bitten too many times. Get a little too hopeful, poke your head up a little and you're just asking for trouble. That's what the whole gang has learned, one way or another. There's always someone there to beat you back down. Even if that someone is yourself. 

Somehow it's still there though, just behind Mac's eyes. Something warm, something hopeful. Something close to that at least. It's been far too long since anyone has looked at Dennis quite like that, and so he have to make him leave. 

Mac has to leave because if he doesn't then Dennis will dig his claws in and this time he'll never be able to make himself let go. 

Dennis might be damned but Mac sure as hell doesn't have to be damned with him. 

"You have to leave. Right now. Go." 

It falls flatter than he hoped it would but there's nothing he can do about that now. God. 

"But I just got here," Mac says, all big eyed confusion, and Dennis wants to reach out and scratch the look off his face, wants to crush him close and never let go. 

"Excellent. So you know the way back then. Off you go," Dennis says with a little shooing motion. He keeps his face just slack enough to look uninterested, keeps his hands carefully nonchalant in his pockets. 

They're shaking too hard for it not to be noticeable, and it's too early in the day to pass off as alcohol withdrawal. 

"I don't understand, are you mad at me? Is it because I didn't call first? Because I would've done but I realised halfway here that I left my phone at Charlie's and by then I was already on the plane and I couldn't afford another ticket and I tried to call from the airport but I couldn't remember the number."

"No, Mac, it's not that," Dennis interrupts, just to make him stop talking. 

He'd forgotten why those verbal tangents used to make him quite so angry, forgotten that little curl of fondness that spiked with every too violent gesture and soft quirk of Mac's eyebrows. 

It was dangerous to let him continue. 

"You just need to leave. I need you to go. Please," Dennis bites out. There's no way Mac will accept it unless Dennis goes for the jugular, but hell, does he not want to. "I don't want you to be here."

Mac's face falls visibly. It would be funny if it didn't make Dennis want to cry. 

"You. You don't want me here?" 

"No Mac, I don't. Why the hell would I want you here?" The casual cruelty is a lot harder when he doesn't mean it, Dennis realises. 

"I've been going out with a guy, you know? He's called David, and he's actually kind of amazing. A real beefcake, and almost more of a badass than me. Not entirely obviously because, I mean, come on." Dennis scoffs but Mac continues, undeterred. 

"Anyway, he asked me to move in with him today. And I think maybe I will." 

Mac waits, obviously hoping for a reaction, but Dennis isn't going to give him the satisfaction. He keeps his face carefully disinterested. 

"Whatever, dude. I thought maybe that- no you know what, fuck you. I don't have to- no," Mac says, and he doesn't sound angry so much as tired. "Alright Dennis. Alright. Have it your way. I'll leave." 

Mac shifts on the doorstep, like maybe he wants to say more, but his eyes settle on Dennis' hand resting firmly on the frame, barring his way into the house and shrugs, visibly deciding against it. He pulls his jacket closer around him and Dennis glimpses one of his stupid slogan shirts through the gap and aches at the sight. 

Mac sighs. 

"Yeah. Ok. Bye, Dennis." 

Dennis blinks, deliberately slow, and Mac walks down the porch steps, toeing snow off the edges as he goes. Dennis watches Mac as he wades his way back to the shitty rental car, as he fights with the dodgy lock, as he breathes into his hands to warm them before he touches the cold steering wheel.

He's wearing fingerless gloves, and it's so typical of Mac, putting vanity over practicality still, after all these years, but then Dennis supposes he doesn't have space to judge. 

Dennis watches as the car splutters to life, watches as Mac pulls carefully onto the road, watches until he's nothing more than a speck in the distance, and then he just watches the snow tumble down, chokingly thick and never ending. 

"Goodbye, Mac," he says, quietly. The empty road has nothing to say in reply. His fingers on the doorframe have turned white with the force of his grip. "Goodbye."

After a long while, Dennis clicks the door shut softly. His hands are cold.

**Author's Note:**

> essentially this whole thing was the product of me trying to avoid writing my essays, which, surprise, i succeeded in doing. now i'm kind of screwed but whatever, this was a good time 
> 
> title is from War of the Foxes by Richard Siken


End file.
